Thursday, January 5, 2012

Book Review: Trains by Byron Barton

My mother sent me this board book for L.H. to enjoy. It can be difficult to find English children's books in Israel at reasonable prices (if at all), so mostly I rely on other people sending them. When we first received this book, I wasn't quite sure what to think of it. To me it seemed a little bit boring because it had no plot line and only a handful of words on each page. L.H. fell in love with it, though, so I decided to resign myself to liking it.

The truth is, the simplicity of the words and the drawings gives the reader a lot of room to be creative. Instead of L.H. quickly losing interest and turning the page like she does with other books that have more words, she points things out to me and waits for me to tell her when it's time to turn the page. There are plenty of things that can be counted - cars, people, trees, houses, etc. Additionally, many pages lend themselves to some fun with sounds, whether it's the choo-choo of the train or the ding-ding-ding of the crossing gate. L.H. is fond of the page with the little red caboose, because then of course we have to sing the song to go along with it. :)

Overall, I would not recommend this book for an unimaginative person, because they would find it boring. As long as you are willing to go beyond the words, though, and bring your child into interaction with the book, then everyone involved will have a good time...even after the hundredth time.

Ima rating: four stars out of five.
L.H. rating: if she could count to ten, this book would definitely get ten stars out of five.